Public Takeovers and Mergers

We are a market leader in public takeovers and mergers and advise targets, bidders and financial advisers on UK and cross-border deals. We have experience in recommended and hostile bids as well as those that involve competing bidders.

We advise on:

• strategically significant - we advised on the largest public takeover in the UK in 2009, the bid for Cadbury plc
• groundbreaking - we advised Greencore on its proposed merger with Northern Foods. This was the first time that the Cross-Border Merger Directive had been used for a merger under the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers

We have a good relationship with the Takeover Panel, the organisation that governs public takeovers in the UK.

Many of our largest takeovers and mergers have a financing element and our acquisition and leveraged finance lawyers can advise on complex, highly structured and leveraged deals.